Speaker scrum spreads cracks in the GOP wall
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), right, consults Wednesday with Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the temporary leader of the House. Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite
When Republicans won a House majority in last year’s midterm elections, it gave their party an outpost from which they could wield limited clout over the policies of a Democratic White House and Senate.
At least that was the expected result.
For the last two weeks, however, the GOP caucus effectively shut down its own outpost — first by ejecting Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker and then by failing to agree on a successor. The conference has 221 members, the Democrats 212. Only a handful of GOP dissenters are needed to stop any candidate, just as only a few malcontents were needed to drive out McCarthy.
Rep. Steve Scalise was nominated, and fell short. Now it’s Rep. Jim Jordan’s turn in that position. Jordan is a more emblematic story because the de facto national Republican Party boss, Donald Trump, supports the hard-right firebrand from Ohio whom everyone knows to be more of a boat-rocker than a bill-passer.
In New York, Jordan’s past resistance to improving health funding for victims of 9/11-related illnesses was known to three of Long Island’s four Republicans. They didn’t trust him. So Jordan’s reported offer to support raising the federal cap on state and local tax deductions (SALT) from $10,000 to $20,000 — still a hot-button issue for the state — was a no-deal.
Their rejection of Jordan can’t be seen as squarely defying Trump. In both floor votes on Jordan, Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota, and Andrew Garbarino put in the name of ex-Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin for speaker.
That’s a clever symbolic alternative. Not only is Zeldin one of their own, but for months, last year’s GOP gubernatorial candidate has been cheerleading for Trump’s return. The House incumbents may have to run down-ballot from the ex-president next year. Others from the state gave in to the pressure of Jordan’s non-juggernaut — Reps. Nicole Malliotakis, Nick Langworthy, and Marc Molinaro among them. That puts them in the not-so-proud company of the indicted fabulist Rep. George Santos.
LaLota appeared on CNN, carrying the message for an interesting alternative. The pro-Jordan forces have been playing up how terrible it would be to not have a speaker when such crises as that in Israel may require leadership and money from Congress. LaLota’s reply: Let Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who was made “speaker pro tempore” to preside over the process to replace McCarthy, function with all the duties of speaker for the time being.
Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) on Wednesday filed a motion to make this official. “After two weeks without a Speaker of the House and no clear candidate with 217 votes in the Republican conference, it is time to look at other viable options,” he said.
Of course, McHenry was one of McCarthy’s closest allies during his truncated tenure. Joyce’s motion only underscores the futility, so far, of having bounced the California Republican in the first place.
After all the hue and cry, it remains unclear where this first-of-a-kind implosion of a House majority will lead or even whom it was supposed to help.
The story is summed up simply in Wednesday’s tally. In a House that voters decided last November should have a Republican majority, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn got 212 votes to Jordan’s 199. For the moment, the Grand Old Party looks crippled.
n COLUMNIST DAN JANISON’S opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
